Over recent years, there has been increasing concern over the consumption of fossil fuels and the production of greenhouse gases. One way to reduce the globe's reliance on fossil fuels has been the development of biofuels from renewable sources. Biofuels such as biopetrol, biodiesel, and bioethanol are considered to be cleaner and more environmentally friendly alternatives to fossil fuels.
Although biofuels may help in reducing greenhouse emissions, they are not without problems. A controversial aspect is the “food for fuel” problem where the demand for energy crops has been perceived as pushing up the prices of grain commodities. Another serious drawback is the damage caused to ecologically sensitive ecosystems, such as rain forests, where the planting of energy crops such as soya and palm has caused large scale destruction.
The biofuels industry is turning to second and third generation biofuels to alleviate these issues. The production of fuels by microorganisms and the use of waste substrates are important areas of research.
The conversion of carbon dioxide to fuel molecules is known. Carbon dioxide can be converted chemically, electrochemically, and either directly or indirectly by microorganisms.
WO2013/011292 describes a microorganism which is capable of producing long chain aliphatic carboxylic acids by fixing carbon dioxide to produce formate, and then sequentially adding carbon atoms to the backbone to produce the long chain aliphatic carboxylic acids. This document describes a particular strain referred to as Acetobacter lovaniensis FJ1 having accession number NCIMB 41808 (deposited at NCIMB Ltd. (Ferguson Building, Craibstone Estate, Bucksburn, Aberdeen, AB21 9YA) on 12 Jan. 2011 under the provisions of the Budapest Treaty).